14 DAY TRIAL // Following a large number of complaints from users claiming to have experienced harassing behavior on the platform, interim CEO Ellen Pao and the rest of the team announced in a blog post on Thursday that they had been reviewing their guidelines for the past few months.
They revealed that they plan to tighten up the community rules in order to avoid instances of people being attacked on Reddit by other users and, consequently, stifling their freedom to express their opinions for fear of the consequences.
Threatened with the unveiling of private information, they prefer to keep quiet or leave the news platform.
In order to prevent any such occurrences, the Reddit team announced users that they have the possibility to report abusive behavior and the company will analyze things thoroughly, although they did not mention what exactly the measures that they plan on taking against the offender are. Will they get banned from the site or do they simply receive a warning?
Redditors were unhappy with the change
However, not everyone was particularly thrilled about the changes, as can be seen in a Reddit thread related to the blog post.
Many users argued that the information provided was rather vague and wondered what the term "harassment" could imply. Since Reddit owes its popularity to the fact that it is more permissive than other sites and to its looser guidelines, people are now wondering what the changes will bring about.
Some users speculated that this might be the company’s attempt to attract advertisers on the platform.
They also expressed their discontentment about the fact that Reddit admins have made a habit of shadow-banning users for no apparent reason, and they are afraid that this practice will intensify after the implementation of the new guidelines.
Although it is yet unclear how the executives plan to make the website a safer place while allowing people to voice their opinions and beliefs, it goes without saying that redditors are displeased with the company’s sudden decision to become more involved in what they say or post on the online forum.